FINE GAEL MEPs Gay Mitchell and Mairéad McGuinness last night remained the front-runners in the race to become the party’s presidential nominee ahead of a selection convention on Saturday.
Slightly more Fine Gael parliamentarians declared publicly for Ms McGuinness than for any other candidate and a small number of others also said they would back her but did not want to go on the record. However, Mr Mitchell appeared to have a slight edge when off-the-record commitments were taken into account.
The other contenders are former European Parliament president Pat Cox, who is said to have considerable support among the party leadership, and former minister of state Avril Doyle.
At a vote taken during a constituency meeting in Dublin West on Tuesday night, Gay Mitchell’s name narrowly beat that of Mr Cox, a source said.
The four contenders will address the selection convention at the Regency Hotel in north Dublin on Saturday afternoon, with the result expected by about 5.30pm.
This is the first time the party’s electoral college system for presidential elections will be operated and the PR-STV method is to be used.
There are more than 600 members of the electoral college, including Oireachtas members, MEPs, councillors and members of the Fine Gael executive council.
Votes of TDs, Senators and MEPs who are in attendance will count for 70 per cent of the total poll; local authority representatives present will count for 20 per cent and executive members at the convention will comprise the remaining 10 per cent.
Where there is an overlap between categories, members of the electoral college will vote in the section with the greater voting strength.
The parliamentary party comprises 76 TDs, 19 Senators and four MEPs but at least three of those will not be voting (see panel).
A total of 507 affiliated members of either county, city, borough or town councils or Údarás na Gaeltachta (Gaeltacht authority) have a vote but two of them will vote in their capacity as members of the executive council.
There are 29 members of the executive council, but six of these, including Taoiseach Enda Kenny, will vote as members of the parliamentary party.
The selection convention vote will be run according to the Seanad electoral system.The voting slips will be colour-coded, with different colours signifying the electoral bloc that the member is from and with it the “weight” of the vote. There will be a maximum of three counts with a candidate being eliminated after each count, assuming no candidate reaches the quota before that.
The count will not be open to the delegates or media. Each candidate will, however, have two agents to observe the count process. Only delegates present on the day may vote. Fine Gael legal adviser Kevin O’Higgins will be the returning officer.
No postal, proxy or absentee votes will be accepted. Ballot papers will be issued at 4pm and voting concludes at 4.30pm.